The Lion

I said, "SO One, Hunter here. You guys still with me?"

Silence.

"SO One, Hunter. Hello?"

Stark said, "I think everyone left."

"Joke, right?"

"Joke. Hey, pick up the pace. Everyone wants to cut out."

I don't really like jokes in serious situations unless I'm making them.

I said, "Hey, do me a favor-call Bellevue, get through the switchboard, and have someone on the security floor go into my wife's room and tell her I'm heading home."

"Will do."

I continued on, still thinking that there was a chance of making contact with the enemy. But the enemy was either oblivious that I was here in the park or they'd seen me, reported to Khalil, and he'd smelled a trap. But I was game to do it again, tomorrow night, and every night for as long as Walsh and Paresi believed this could work, and as long as they wanted to commit manpower to it. In fact, this was all we had. The only other way that we'd find Khalil was to wait until he sprung his own plan on us.

Up ahead was the Alice in Wonderland sculpture, and I stopped and looked at it. The Mad Hatter reminded me of Tom Walsh.

I continued on, then exited the park at Fifth Avenue and 72nd Street and began the walk home. The street was quiet at this hour, and the rain was a little heavier.

Stark said, "We'll try another location tomorrow night."

I said to everyone, "Thanks. Good job."

About eight or nine voices acknowledged.

I walked into my lobby, and Special Agent Lisa Sims, of all people, was on duty. She asked me, "How'd it go?"

"A good trial run."

She nodded and said, "Sorry to hear about your wife."

"Thanks. She's okay."

"Good." She took something out of her pocket and handed it to me. It was a silver dollar token from the Taj Mahal. She said, "For luck."

I smiled. "Thanks." I added, "It worked last time."

She smiled in return and said, "You look like you need a good night's sleep."

"Yeah. But you have to stay awake."

"Right… well, if you get insomnia… I'm here."

How shall I take that?

I wished her a good evening, walked to the elevator, got on, and drew my Glock.

I entered my apartment, gun in hand. I'd left all the lights on and they were all still on. I swept the rooms, returned to the door, and bolted it.

The bolt itself was good, but not great, though I had never worried about it. But if someone had a door ram with them, they could take out the lock and the bolt with one or two hits.

I wasn't getting paranoid or skittish-I was just thinking about worst-case scenario.

The bad guys could sometimes be clever and smart, but smart people also know when not to be clever and when to use brute force. Speed, surprise, and frontal assault-and I'd be falling thirty-four floors from the balcony, without a parachute, and Khalil would be waving good-bye and calling to me, "Your last free fall, Mr. Corey!" Splat.

That called for a drink, but it also called for being cold sober. So I had half a drink. I really hated this bastard.

I dragged the couch into the foyer and shoved it against the door.

Then I changed into dry clothing and sat in my La-Z-Boy. I turned on the TV and found a great old John Wayne movie-Danger Rides the Range-and when the Duke got into a gunfight with the bad guys, I aimed my revolver at the screen and helped him out. Bang, bang. Watch out, Duke! Bang.

At about 2 A.M., I went to bed. The bedroom door has a good lock, as I'd found out the hard way from two wives and one girlfriend, and for the first time it was me who locked the bedroom door.

I was completely pissed off that I had to live like this; this went against my training and my natural instincts to be the guy playing offense. But sometimes you just had to wait for the other guy to make his move, and when he did, the game would be over quickly.

I fell into an uneasy sleep and had a dream that Khalil and I had entered a big arena from opposite ends and were walking toward each other. It was night, and the stadium was empty, and it was very quiet, and only a few of the stadium lights were on, and there were dark shadows across the field, and we both passed through light and dark as we approached each other. And finally, we stood face-to-face, a few feet apart in a circle of light. We both nodded, and he drew a knife from his belt, and I saw it was covered with blood-Kate's blood. And he licked it. I drew my knife-the K-bar-and held it up so he could see it. He nodded again, and we moved toward each other. The stadium lights suddenly went out… and I could hear his breathing in the dark. Then he was close enough for me to smell him, and I heard him say, "I saved you for last."

I lunged at his voice in the dark, and felt warm blood on my chest, but I didn't know if it was his blood or mine-or both.

I woke up in a sweat, breathing hard. I sat there in bed, staring into the dark, and pictured his face, and I said to him, "I saved you all for myself."

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Thursday morning. The weather was better than yesterday, which I took as an omen that today I would kill Asad Khalil. Maybe that's a stretch.

I spoke to Captain Paresi and we discussed the previous night's operation, but there wasn't much to say except that it ran well, and everyone-especially me-did a good job. The target of the operation, Asad Khalil, however, did not show up. And that's when we'd find out how good we really are.

Paresi said he got some manpower to check the apartment houses and office buildings on East 72nd Street, starting across the street from my building. He informed me that it would take at least ten days to accomplish this-unless, of course, they got lucky before that.

Then he said to me, "Are you up for another night of walking?"

"Anything that gets me out of the house."

"Okay, we're going to try something different tonight. I want you to come to 26 Fed at about six P.M. Take a taxi, and maybe you'll be followed by Sandland Taxi Service. But even if you're not, we're going to assume, or hope, that 26 Fed is being watched from the street or from a surrounding building. Okay?"

"You mean we could be under surveillance? Is that legal?"

"Actually, it probably is. Okay, then about nine P.M. you leave the building and proceed on foot to the area of the World Trade Center construction site. It's pretty quiet down there after dark and you'll just wander the area-sad, lonely, contemplating life and death. Then at some point you'll walk down to Battery Park." He added, "We'll play it by ear and see what looks good as the hour gets later."

"Okay." I asked him, "Where will you be?"

"I'll stay at 26 Fed so I can be close."

"Good. And Tom?"

"Same."

I said to him, "I want to pick the place for tomorrow night."

He replied, "We're not running this operation over the weekend. Too many people out and about."

That made sense, but it didn't make me happy. I said, "Try to rethink that." I reminded him, "This is all we have unless we find him the old-fashioned way."

"Right. In fact, we're going to use the manpower we save on you this weekend to knock on doors in your neighborhood."

"All right, but-"

"Also, John, the other possibility is he will find you."

"Right. But I need to make myself available to him."

He pointed out, "You're also available at home. Maybe he'll try that this weekend."

I didn't want to argue with him, and I was already thinking about giving my protective detail the slip and going out on my own to see if The Lion was stalking me.

Paresi said, "Let's see what happens tonight." He speculated, "Khalil may have skipped out."

"He's here."

I called Kate and she said to me, "A nurse came in last night about one and said she had a message for me." Kate informed me, "I thought you were dead."